ORIGIN

By the Bundle: 2012 Wavecrest Woodie Show Finds

Saturday we were at the Wavecrest meet at Moonlight State Beach in Encinitas, California. This is the largest all-woodie car show in the world, and it was our first time to visit. We were blown away by the quality and variety of the cars, but also the high number of them that were for sale. All but a few had prices posted and owners on-site that were ready to share about the cars. Check our our favorite projects below.

Shoebox Fords were everywhere we turned. The 1951 project car below as offered with new wood already installed for $29,900. Check out the full window flyer here in the gallery. We also found that he has it listed here on his local Craigslist up in Ventura for less, at $27,900, so be sure to get the discount.

The 1950 Chrysler Town and Country coupe below was a running and driving project that seemed to have just come out of long-term storage. The asking price was posted as $22k, and the full flyer is here in the gallery.

The 1948 Dodge Suburban 4×4 below was one of five such trucks at the show, but the only one with the big 4×4 drivetrain, so it sat a full 18″ taller that the 2WD versions. This one was said to be a good driver, and looked impressive towering over the rest of the cars in the lot, even the Marmon Harrington 4×4’s. Check out its full info flyer here in the gallery, where the seller was asking $75k.

Other cool cars at the show? We loved seeing the real Jimmy’z shoebox that we had on our t-shirts as a kid. Then there were the funky rarities from Plymouth, Buick, and Mercury that were subtly different than the wooden Fords we are so used to seeing.

Check out more pics of each of these cars, as well as others, in our full gallery here on Flickr and in the slide-show below.

47 Comments

Just guessing here, but if the body is built correctly to period I’d expect that simply being of recent construction shouldn’t disqualify it. As all of the pre-WW2 Rolls-Royce cars were sold in chassis form, with or without a body of the buyer’s choice, it was not uncommon for an owner to have two or more bodies made, either as permanent replacements or to be fitted as circumstances dictated. Many coachbuilders continued building such bodies through the ’60s, and a few specialists still do. I’ve mentioned that a Phantom “woodie” was one of two favorite cars I saw at my first classics auction (the other being a T35 Bugatti being used as an occasional daily driver!) in Nashville ca. 1974, and its condition seemed to indicate either recent reconstruction or obsessively careful maintenance.

As a visitor to Wavecrest from the UK (not every year, can’t afford it!) my ambition is to complete my Phantom Woodie and ship it to the US to drive it to Wavecrest. So, should I be banned from the top car park?

The Betz car came under the “not originally built as a woodie” designation. As Wavecrest became more and more popular, there was a space limitation developing; that’s why those types of phantoms and “tin woodies” were the first to be denied admission. It definitely ruffled the feathers of a few guys that that assumed that just being a NWC member entitled them entry, no matter what kind of (however nice) car they had; the fact is, the chapters that put on the events determine the qualifications. The Santa Barbara show, for example, sets aside an area for cool non-woodies to display off to one side of the show (although one dorky PT Cruiser managed to get in a couple of years ago!).

I recall Stan Betz being told to, and did , put his phantom “woodie” ( I think it was a corvette)down on the beach and original ones such as your M-H were once certainly more numerous at runs than they seem to be today.

Of course there have always been modified Woodies about……..ban connotes, improperly in this case, “forbidden”.though somewhere in my dessicated cranium I recall distinct conversations on the merits of allowing modified and “phantom “Woodies into Wavecrest., of course this goes back to the Dohertys and beyond.

DRV: My first woodie was a ’42 Ford ; right after I sold it I saw 5 of them at Wavecrest, so they’re not that rare… ’42 Merc, now that’s rare! MOUNTAIN WOODIE: I was at the first Wavecrests, and there was no ban on modified cars. There were definitely modified woodies there, notably a brown-metallic ’40 with Jag suspension and ‘vette power. Ron Heiden is one of several excellent wood bodycraftsmen in SoCal: Chris Messano, Richard Machut, and Doug Carr are others. TOM JONES: I own the green M-H Merc woodie partially visible in the gallery. Email me at HOMER68@COX.NET and I’ll send you all the pics you want.

~ these are the cars that really require the full range of craftsmanship; mechanical, metal forming, furniture and cabinet making skill, and the ability to combine them together in a single effort. does the term ‘millwright’ come to mind? .like wooden boats, each is a work of art and i’m surprised TC finds them boring given his back story. i love them more with each one i see. .surf culture connection be be damned, a man who builds or restores a woodie has been to school!

Mountain woody- The trim is clean and the lines go better with it in the ’48 trim I think. The trim doesn’t have any indents or colors in them and all of the roundness of the sheet metal is is less broken up.

The sheer pointlessness of steel-framed Woodies is what I like most about them. I love working with wood — I’ve been known to get misty-eyed over a slab of quarter-sawn oak — and to me, a restored Woody with perfect joints is a thing of beauty, and always will be.

I hope you stayed far enough to the rear that the driver could se you :)

I cant tell you how many times folks sit in my blind spot admiring the car and how many times, had I not engaged my swiveling cranium, I would have run right into them changing lanes . :)

The ’46, ’47’ ’48 are indistinguishable to the average person….and to me sometimes. A ’46 has white lens parking lights on either side of the front hood and red striping on the front chrome. AND.some late ’46’s have been titled as ’47’s. I think the ’48’s are different only in the speedo and clock faces but maybe I am thinking of the ’46’s.

The “shoebox” Fords ..49-51 are popular as they have a lower profile and have always been a favorite of hot rodders.both the coupes and wagons.

My woodie is in the Bat pix, I think second to last one, behind the green Buick Dynaflow on the end of the row. I had a palapa attached to the door frame because it was so bizarrely hot. You can just make out the front end and windshield behind the Buick.

Hate to do this to you…but I’m a Limey and Ii know that the panels on the 51 unbolt! they would have been trial fitted and fitted again to ensure their coeect fit. Then removed for sprayiong and refitted.. As the car is for sale, better not to paint it and allow the new owner to choose their own colour.

I’ve owned my ’41 Ford woodie since ’93, I had wanted one most of my life but couldn’t justify the money required to buy one already finished and didn’t have the time or skills to build one while trying to run my own business. I purchased a ragged and poorly done ’39 Ford tudor rod and redid all of the poorly done features on it. Swapped it for a ’24 Ford, swapped it for a ’37 Ford, swapped it for a ’29 Ford sedan delivery and finally swapped that and a small amount of cash for the woodie. It was already modified but the modifications were poorly done and the engine was tired. The most important thing was that the wood was about 95 percent original and still is. Yes it creaks and groans especially during dry weather and I nearly burst into tears when we are caught out in the rain but it’s never had a ”For Sale” sign on it and won’t until my heirs own it.

Went to a local beach city car show recently, (El Segundo), and was suprised at how many cars shown had prices on the windows. A lot more than years previous. Perhaps an insight in the economy of the classic-owner Baby Boomers. Or maybe, a pie-in-sky, shoot for the moon number; if it sells, so be it….

Where were you? You must have been undercover! I had my ’47 Ford Super Deluxe there.

Having gone to every Wavecrest since the first one on Moonlight Beach in ’90 and having had my Woodie since ’91 I can tell you that like everything, owning aWoodie has changed.

All of us have aged and those of us with more money than sense have, as would be expected, distorted the market somewhat…..especially since the Nick Alexander humongous collection was sold a couple of years ago.

At one point no modified Woodies were allowed at Wavecrest.but as the people aged and comfort took precedence over originality, that rule fell by the wayside. Today it seems most of the Woodies are modified. That may be great for comfort and reliability but sort of defeats the purpose in my view. Mine is as it was built.plus a 2 speed Columbia rear end which is a must for freeway driving.

The folks behind Wavecrest, San Diego Woodies, are some of the hardest working folks in the hobby. They put on what I consider the granddaddy of Woodie shows……..and do so with humility, a smile and a lot of fun.

Ron Heiden of Heiden Woodworks in Encinitas is THE Guru of wooden bodies and an absiolute exacting craftsman who is respected nationwide for his work with Woodies and a driving force behind Wavecrest. He built the Monster Garage “monster” for the cable program in 5 days and has owned a number of great Woodies.

One more thing about the cars for sale. Every year there are always a few for sale and this year, at least to me, it didnt seem much different.

More pictures of Marmon Harringtons please! I once had a woody calendar that had a ’48 Mercury Marmon in it. That one sold me, a Woodie is definitely on my bucket list. Preferably a early post war wagon…

Other Max- Yes, that would have been in ’71. No rust except for the chrome skinny vertical square rode in the grille. Tripling your money when your 17 was a good thing right. Have you ever seen a ’42 Ford woodie, or even sedan?

Back in the 70s, woodies were already too expensive, too hard to find (no Internet), and too complicated for teenagers to maintain. So we went with late 60s Ford Falcon and Rambler American wagons, occasionally leavened with Chevelle SS big block cars, Mustangs, and air cooled VWs. Cheap, lousy cars, will never be worth a thing…Woops, what?

@chrispc: Wood’s hard, painting is easy. Find or make the wood part and fit it into place, then set it aside while you (or some shop) do the metal bodywork and painting.

From a purely structural standpoint a wooden car body makes a hell of a lot less sense than a wooden boat, unless you’re talking marine-ply monocoques. High maintenance, excessive weight and poor stiffness, for sure. The fact remains that many of the handsomest car bodies, from pre-WW1 through the 1950s, have been either timber or half-timber, and that’s excluding the great majority of pre-WW2 car bodies that were wood-framed. The most elegant, to these eyes anyway, were the ones whose intent was essentially utilitarian: the haulage of people and cargo. As drivers go, nobody’s going to use these to chase corners, but for calm tours in good weather – good enough (and slow enough) so that simply opening all the windows works just fine – I think a nice woodie would be good to have. I’d certainly rather have one of these as a camper than any SUV or RV.

This is a great way to start the day! Having a slew of pictures of these gorgeous icons of American automobilia is great inspiration for a home garage hobbyist two years into a complete rebuild/reconstruction of a 51 Ford rust carcass that I literally lifted out of a junkyard with a forklift. They are addicting and a challenge to build. In the late 40s they became more of a steel frame car with wood panels on the sides rather that the fuu wooden structured cars prior to that. Probably much less creaky but I have never driven an early one. A far as maintanence, most of these cars are not daily drivers and probably kept in garages so the weather damage to the wood and finish is minimal. Keep it clean and dry and with todays UV protectant finishes it will last out your lifetime. (By the way, it does seem contrary to logic to fit the wood before the paint, but fitting the wood is no easy task. Variation in dimensions of these cars can be as much as an inch in the same model year so the wood is made oversized. put it on the car, mark it, take it off the car, try again, cut it again, belt sand it, repeat over and over until it fits just right. Thats a lot of clamps and power tools applied repeatadly to a vehicle that you have fresh paint on so usually its done before final paint.) As far as speed, by looking at these cars in the pictures, sure some are restored as original but I bet at least half have engine and tranny swaps, front clips, modern disc brakes and modern air systems. The most common swap is to a 302 with 350s also common, so no, speed is not an issue. However, you still want to cruise slow for the COOL factor. Sure the Hawaiin shirts and surf boards can be as cliche as those child dolls hiding their faces against a Corvette bumper or drive in trays on the window of a 55 Chevy but no more so than driving gloves and caps at a show with Europa TCs (which, by the way, are so polarizingly fugly that I cant believe someone using that screen name would dare comment on the collectors of any car, except maybe Citroens). But surfers were the ones who drove these cars. The wood back in the day was so difficult to maintain that by the early 50s you could buy them dirt cheap. So surfers bought them. You could pile a bunch of COOL surfer dudes in it with boards racked to the roof and head for the best best break. Hard to say why so many of them are for sale now but I do find it interesting. They hit a peak about 8-10 years ago at the same time muscle cars did and maybe lots of people that rode that wave are just moving on to the next trendy thing. I hear the Lotus market is heating up. Regardless of the reason, those of us that love them will continue to love them and in a few years look for me at one of these events. Kawabunga!

The affection for woodies was a never explained mystery to me. By the time I attempted to ask probably the one most important collector, Nick always redirected the conversation to his family and especially grand kids for whom he had his deepest love and interest. Great collector, true gentleman, fantastic woodie collection and examplary dealership. We’re any of cars at the show?

BAT, nice to see a feature on woodies, I never get tired of seeing them. The Jimmy’z shoebox was for sale at Woodies on the Wharf in Santa Cruz a few years ago for $8k but needing a lot of work. Looking back, I should have bought it on the spot. How does it look today?

Having a woody for more than 4 hours can be a problem Pinarello-maybe that’s why so many are for sale all of the time. But many of these have ridden the wave for the last 5 years or so and are done now. My brother had a ’42 in ’69 he found in a field for 60 bucks. It was a good original that he tripled his money with in 2 years.Wahoo! I have never seen another ’42 since.

Too many “investors” jumped in when the market rose on woodies as several fine restorations sold through auctions. The new owners (I hesitate to call them hobbyists) discovered that these cars require a lot of maintenance and (surprise) they creak a lot and are hard to air condition. The market peaked and waned and the bailing out of the investments is in full swing. You could say the wave crested and broke. Still a bitchin’ trip to ride in down the Cali coast though!